02/13/2014

The burden of yellow roses

In preface, this is the first blog I've written in f-o-r-e-v-e-r! I've written other things, letters, cookbooks and thousands of iPhone notes but I haven't felt compelled to blog. Today I did. Sometimes compelled writing is just therapy, which this may be for me as I was sad. I didn't want to offend anyone. I hope I don't. I just wanted to write this. And so I did.

Today is the day before Valentine's Day. The day when we go above and beyond what we already do for our loved ones to show that we actually mean it! I was with my 4 year old son at the grocery store which, as customary for a day before even the smallest of holidays, was annoying. We managed to make our way to the holiday section that was overwhelmed with the color of red, the shape of hearts and the smell of roses and my son picked out 3D dinosaur valentines. This was no doubt to show his love of dinosaurs more than his love of his actual classmates and I picked out a balloon and some yellow roses for a dead baby.

We got into our car, the groceries piled in the trunk next to the black bags filled with unused toys, my ever present reminder to finally go to Good Will and I made good on my 1 millionth promise of the day to my son and let him open up his dinosaur valentines in the car. In just the quick stop to the store I had made so many decisions in my sons best interest. Decisions that us parents don't even realize we're making, day in and day out. I got him the dinosaur valentines because the Batman ones had a scary Joker on them and the ninja ones looked too violent. I got him the tear free kid soap because he's afraid of water but loves to dump it on his head in the bath so I don't want the soap to hurt his eyes and make him that much more afraid of water. I got him the Fiber One fruit snacks that at least have fiber in them over the Pixar character ones that have zero benefit other than eating a gummy monster named Sullivan, and I promised him that he could look at his valentines in the car if he didn't get the free cookie at the store which is full of sugary frosting and bad for his teeth. I put him in our car that has great side safety ratings and buckled him into a child seat that I researched more than probably necessary before buying. All of these are decisions I made for my child while at the annoying store while I also decided to buy some yellow roses for someone else's child because they decided to throw their baby in a ditch, moments after it was born.

I drove down a road yesterday on my way to a meeting and it was just like any other drive. I was again in my car, again with the Good Will black bags forgetfully in my trunk, except with my son in preschool I was allowed the luxury of my loud, inappropriate rap music and except this time, me and my bags of unused toys and rap music passed by a baby. A baby dead, in a cold, wet ditch, its life giving umbilical cord still attached. A baby wrapped in a towel, not for warmth but for concealment. I had no idea. An hour later the police made their gruesome discovery.

This is a tragedy. This is devastating. This is every negative, generic, sad word in the book that we so often use for our team losing the big game or our babysitter being booked on a Saturday but for this situation all those horrid words are so very, horribly, tragically, true.

We are humans. We are awesome but we sometimes suck. We build but we sometimes tear down. We win but we sometimes lose. The only thing that is for sure is that we are constantly having to make our own decisions. Right or wrong. Good or bad. Whether we want to or not. It's not always easy. It never is.

Here's something awesome (finally!), we live in a country and a society that allows women to actually make the decision to be a mom or not. It's not an easy decision. Nothing is . But, here's the real awesomeness, while there are women deciding that they don't want to be a mom, there are people out there desperately waiting to be a Mom or a Dad. They are praying that an adoption agency will accept them into their program in the hopes that a baby, who doesn't share their genetic makeup, will be theirs. There are people that aren't driving the BMW they want because they are saving up their money for a baby that will one day be theirs, even though they have no idea when that day will be. There are people that go to work every day whose only job is to bring the people who want to be moms and dads to those that don't. One person's burden another's blessing. HOW FUCKING AWESOME IS THAT!????! (Sooo not sorry for cussing on this subject. You're welcome it took me so long!) A visit to a local charity or an email to an online agency and those people filled with fear will be comforted. They are not alone. Us humans screw up all the time!

If that isn't enough, our society (which, yes, is very screwed up but I'm focusing on the positive as this is about as negative of a subject matter that I can think of) has gone even a step further. If those women are too afraid to make a choice before the baby is born and if the sound of that first, strong cry from that little life makes them still so afraid that they don't know what else to do, they can (legally) just wrap the baby up in a towel and bring it to a hospital or a fire or police station. It's the law and those professional people will act as such and take that baby in safely, the burden away. Decisions made. A success story of the greatest kind and usually the kind you never hear about.

Or they can decide to wrap it up in a towel and throw it in a ditch. Never have yellow roses and a bumble bee balloon looked so ugly as they did on the side of that road today.